Nahum 1:10

10 Like thorns they are entangled, like drunkards they are drunk; they are consumed like dry straw.

Nahum 1:10 Meaning and Commentary

Nahum 1:10

For while [they be] folden together [as] thorns
Like them, useless and unprofitable, harmful and pernicious, fit only for burning, and, being bundled together, are prepared for it; and which is not only expressive of the bad qualities of the Ninevites, and of the danger they were in, and what they deserved; but of the certainty of their ruin, no more being able to save themselves from it, than a bundle of thorns from the devouring fire: and while they are drunken [as] drunkards;
dead drunk, no more able to help themselves than a drunken man that is fallen; or who were as easily thrown down as a drunken man is with the least touch; though there is no need to have recourse to a figurative sense, since the Ninevites were actually drunk when they were attacked by their enemy, as the historian relates ^F9; that the king of Assyria being elated with his fortune, and thinking himself secure, feasted his army, and gave them large quantities of wine; and while the whole army were indulging themselves, the enemy, having notice of their negligence and drunkenness by deserters, fell upon them unawares in the night, when disordered and unprepared, and made a great slaughter among them, and forced the rest into the city, and in a little time took it: they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry;
as easily, and as inevitably and irrecoverably.

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 Diodor. Sicul. l. 2. p. 112.

Nahum 1:10 In-Context

8 even in a rushing flood. He will make a full end of his adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.

9 Why do you plot against the Lord? He will make an end; no adversary will rise up twice.

10 Like thorns they are entangled, like drunkards they are drunk; they are consumed like dry straw.

11 From you one has gone out who plots evil against the Lord, one who counsels wickedness.

12 Thus says the Lord, "Though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut off and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.